GEHMS. 73 



This would indicate that the scheme of creation is 

 not so imperfect after all, and that the chain of mutual 

 interdependence that links together animal and vege- 

 table, rock and plant, extends also to the germ world, 

 and that the microbe is essential to the life of the 

 higher form of animals. 



Bacteriologists have omitted to tell us about diges- 

 tion, elimination and exercise, or about fresh air, pure 

 water and sunshine. They forget to tell us that bad 

 habits may again produce the same disease, that alcohol 

 destroys about 100,000 lives every year, and that tobacco 

 produces many fatal maladies, yet they prove their 

 loyalty by antitoxins and animal extracts manufac- 

 tured by themselves. These are but the revival of 

 those principles and that commercial enterprise which 

 a few years ago gave us Berckley's Panacea, the hydro- 

 gen sulphide cure for consumption; Brown-Sequard's 

 Elixir of Life; Kadam's Microbe Killer; Koch's Tuber- 

 culin, etc.; all failures, yet at one time each of these 

 created its furore and later was stored away in the 

 obsolete archives illustrative of the credulity of the 

 profession. 



These remedies, long since proven worthless, are 

 now replaced by antitoxins. What are antitoxins? 

 Bacteriologists claim that germs are the cause of dis- 

 ease. The germs first produce a poison in the system 

 and disease follows. They claim that antitoxin when 

 injected into the body of the patient neutralizes the 

 poison, destroys the germs and the patient recovers. 

 Antitoxins are prepared as follows : The germs, or their 

 waste products (ptomains), are injected in to the body 



